Do you use SAS or STATA? Why? I use SAS, and am (a) an experimentalist, and (b) old. Are those the relevant variables? Are there substantive differences in which is best for certain tasks, or is it just a matter of familiarity? Do they play well together? Does anyone use them both in sequence (e.g., [...] Read more > >

Next Monday (April 12) is the first meeting of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Standard Setting for Private Companies. This has the potential to be a very wide-ranging and interesting continuation of a very long-standing discussion about GAAP for non-public entities. As I understand it, many years ago, the debate began and was labeled the [...] Read more > >

If you assumed that accounting standards wouldn’t get sucked into the highly charged health care debate, you guessed wrong! From the New York Times An association representing 300 large corporations urged President Obama and Congress on Monday to repeal a provision of the health care overhaul that prompted AT&T, Caterpillar and other companies to announce [...] Read more > >

The paradoxical title of this post is quoted from this article in Science News about the inconsistent and often inappropriate use of statistics in academic research. I would strongly recommend every accounting researcher read the article, make sure they understand the criticisms, and then promptly ignore most of them. The article emphasizes that statistical significance [...] Read more > >

Somebody asked me about Nike’s redeemable preferred stock. SFAS 150 is not my area of expertise really, but .. the question that came to me was “is this in the mezannine?” I understood that nothing was there anymore. This company (nike) seems to be putting it in the mezannine but not really .. they don’t [...] Read more > >

I just came across this and have listened only to part of the first series (of five) but it seems quite interesting (and humorous). http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00r401p/A_Brief_History_of_Double_Entry_Bookkeeping_Episode_1/ Read more > >

My colleague here at Texas, John McInnis, just sent around an interesting email to the UT faculty. I thought I’d share it more broadly. He raises an interesting question.. The web is a abuzz with the release of the Lehman Brothers post-mortem by the Bankruptcy Examiner yesterday. I wasn’t aware of potential accounting gimmicks: [...] Read more > >

Part of Tuesday’s Roundtable with Scott Dyreng focused on how social norms might interact with accounting and financial reporting. In the typed and voice chat, reference was made to a paper by Paul Fischer and Steven Huddart, titled “Optimal Contracting with Endogenous Social Norms” (American Economic Review, Sept 2008, 1459-75). Read more > >

About a year ago (March 12, 2009) the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Entities held a hearing titled “Mark-to-Market Accounting: Practices and Implications.” The Committee members directed several hours of fairly hostile questioning to FASB Chairman Bob Herz and SEC Chief Accountant Jim Kroeker. If you have not seen [...] Read more > >

The SEC essentially punted today on the decision to adopt IFRS in the U.S. Acknowledging that the SEC is in the same position they were in November 2008 (when the proposed roadmap was originally issued), Mary Schapiro said the SEC hopes to be in a position by 2011 to make this decision. One of the [...] Read more > >

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